A couple of weeks ago, I was hit by a tremendous wave of environmental existentialism and I found myself combing through volunteer opportunities that might make me feel like I was doing SOMETHING, anything that was having a positive impact on the world. I will admit that I was kind of in a fugue state, so I hit some buttons and I wasn't fully sure what I might have signed up for except that the title of the job was "Steward" of Como Park.
I finally got an email back from the coordinator there and a request for a phone interview. I was like, "Mmm, interview? Well, okay!" After all, I figured that if nothing else, if the job wasn't what I was thinking it was, I could simply fail the interview by announcing that I was no longer interested. It's a volunteer thing! If I don't want to do it, I can just say so.
Turns out, I'm into it.
So the title "Steward" sounds pretty fancy, but what the work actually involves is agreeing to walk around a specific parcel of Como Park that's been assigned to you, at least twice a month, and pick up any trash you find. I'm actually weirdly excited about this, because I picked a very lovely section of
Como. I'm including a link here for those of you who are not familiar with the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Those of you who are old nerds might know a little something about Como Park because Emma Bull set the final faerie battle there in her book
War for the Oaks. It's a giant park and includes a small zoo and a conservatory.
My parcel of land is just across from the zoo entrance and adjacent to the one parcel of park that is actually maintained by the conservatory (it has a man-made waterfall, butterfly gardens, etc.) My section is kind of boring, but my thought is that as part of my routine, I'll just wander around the neighboring prettier section afterwards, for fun.
Image: screen shot of my section is outlined in white. The black area is maintained by the Conservatory and the orange ones are unclaimed section. The park is much bigger than this (and includes a LAKE), this is just a close-up of my particular area.
Anyway, the whole thing is quite exciting in its way. I was given a whole bunch of handouts, some of which are kind of hilarious.
They send out a specific WHAT NOT TO PICK UP form that has a lot of things you might expect, like sharps, things so heavy that you might hurt yourself, super gross bodily fluid things like used condoms/feminine hygiene products/diapers... all of this is very straightforward, and then you start getting to the, "Oh. I bet some volunteer did this!" section, which includes don't f*cking try to take things out of high places or fast moving water or any place that you have to climb to, you old people who could drowned or break a hip, and my favorite, this choice paragraph:
In unique instances the removal of trash can do more harm than letting it be. It sounds like an odd idea,
but on rare occasions it is true. If a piece of trash has been idle within an area for an extended period of
time it may be partially submerged within the roots or soil of a living root system or support a
foundation for the growth of natural fungi and mosses. Birds build nests with whatever material they
can find. To pluck a plastic drinking straw from a cardinal's nest, for example, would do more harm than
good.
Very specific there with the cardinal's nest, don't you think? Can you imagine the OCD volunteer garbage picker who had this argument, "But it's garbage!" Them, "It was a NEST. Now you have a straw AND THE CARDINALS HAVE NO NEST, STEVE."
Steve was a hazard. Thanks to that one guy someone had to write the "What if we get another Steve" handout.
I do think it's funny that they had to tell us not to climb trees or take other unnecessary risks, although I can see how this kind of volunteer work could get really obsessive. Like, I'm already noticing garbage everywhere and am itching to pick it up and I haven't even checked out my parcel yet!
What have y'all be up to in my absence? Anything fun?
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